Police Chief John Wesley Ratliff, 3rd Kentucky Cavalry

Civil War soldiers who served their country during the Civil War, survived those years of carnage, and returned home to provide more public service - locally, statewide, or nationally - were not unusual in the years and decades following the conflict. Presidents like Ulysses. S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, James A. Garfield, and more are the most well-known of such public figures, but many others gained smaller, yet still influential, positions in the postwar years.

John Wesley Ratliff was one such soldier-turned-public servant.

Wesley, as he was known, was born in Campbell County, Kentucky, in January of 1844, to parents Jessie and Ann Ratliff, though his father died in 1850 when Wesley was just six years old. In that year the family lived in the southern end of the county, where Jessie had supported his family by farming. John had six siblings, including three who were between the ages of 17 and 23, so the family likely continued to work the land in order to survive.

Eleven years later, in April of 1861, decades of political tension throughout the nation finally reached their breaking point, and civil war exploded upon the nation.

Just more than six months after this unwanted arrival, Wesley, though not quite 18 years old yet, enlisted as a private in Captain Lewis Wolfley’s Company on October 21, 1861.Wolfley had recruited men for this unit in Newport, and this group soon became company H of the 3^rd Kentucky Cavalry, with other recruits helping complete its roster. Wesley joined in Newport, perhaps at Wolfley's recruiting office, for a three-year term, then mustered in on December 13, 1861, in Calhoun, McLean County, Kentucky, in the western part of the Commonwealth.   

Cincinnati Daily Press, Sep. 20, 1861. Despite plans to join the 1st Ky Cav. this company joined the 3rd.

The 3^rd Kentucky Cavalry remained in the western theater of the war during its service including the bloody fight at Shiloh, one of the first major battles of the war. These men then joined in the pursuit of Braxton Bragg’s Confederates in the late summer and early fall of 1862 and were near Perryville when that battle, the largest of the war in the unit's home state, took place.

It was present at the bloodbath known as the Battle of Stones River as 1862 turned into 1863 and then, later in that new year, chased John Morgan and his Confederates throughout most of July in what became known as Morgan’s “Great Raid.” They continued the pursuit until the Battle of Buffington Island in southeastern Ohio on July 19, when many of Morgan's men were captured by Union forces, though Morgan and some of his men temporarily escaped before being captured a week later.

The regiment spent the rest of 1863 and early 1864 in Tennessee and northern Mississippi before being part of the Atlanta Campaign and the March to the Sea. Wesley had been promoted to corporal on December 10, 1862, during the campaign that ended at Stones River. He survived the war and mustered out in Savannah, Georgia on December 26, 1864, as his three-year term had expired, (though he may have accepted it as a nice Christmas present right as General William T. Sherman presented Savannah to President Lincoln as such a gift), but the regiment, with many of its men (unlike Wesley) choosing to re-enlist for another term, remained on duty until July of 1865.

In his post-Civil War life, he married Susan Dickson on May 3, 1865. Their marriage bond had been completed a day earlier, “issued on the written consent of the girl’s mother” since Susan was only around 15 to 17 years old at the time. He lived in Covington at that time, but by 1870 had relocated to Bellevue, back in Campbell County, working as a carpenter and living with Susan and their daughter Ida.

The following years saw him return to public service, as he worked as Police Chief of Bellevue from 1893 until 1905, though he still listed “house carpenter” as his main job in 1900. He lived in Bellevue for more than three decades by the time of his 1905 death and at one time held the title of City Marshal, probably the same position later called Police Chief. He also was a member of City Council, Chairman of the School Board, and a member of the fraternal organization called the Knights of Honor.

Wesley Ratliff, from ancestry.com

During his years as head of the police, his name frequently appeared in the newspapers as they reported on some of his on-the-job actions such as making arrests, meeting officials from other local cities, ordering new electric lamps, confiscating equipment used to make counterfeit money, and even, by orders of the mayor, telling owners of slot machines to keep them out of sight. (He found 44 such devices.) The Kentucky Post even reported when this public figure felt ill.

Wesley suffered heart failure near the end of September of 1905 and passed away at his home on Bellevue’s Berry Street on September 30.

One of his obituaries, in the Kentucky Post of September 30, reported that he “was a Civil War veteran and carried a bayonet wound in his right leg, sustained at Vicksburg in 1863,” but his existing military records make no mention of any injuries, and his unit was not in Vicksburg during the war. It is possible that he suffered such a wound, but that his surviving family misremembered where it occurred, especially four decades after the war. Vicksburg was a famous battle and may have been the first one to come to mind at the time of his death.

His death was a painful loss to the local citizenry. City offices were closed and draped in mourning cloth for his funeral, and the Granville Moody Post of the Grand Army of the Republic attended the service.

His son Douglas was out of town on a rafting trip but was able to return in time for the services, conducted by Reverend J.N. Erwin of the Presbyterian Church and Reverend W.H. Smith of the Dayton and Bellevue Christian Church. Among his pallbearers were Civil War veterans Theodore Beyland and James W. Ellis, a former Bellevue Mayor.

Wesley was buried in Evergreen Cemetery in nearby Southgate, where hundreds of other veterans from the Civil War lie at rest.

His successor as Bellevue Police Chief was another local former Union soldier, George Seither, one of four brothers who fought in the war, three for the Union, one for the Confederacy. George had lost his right arm during the war.

From Findagrave memorial id 209482740

Distinguished by His Bravery: William Sanders, Newport Home Guards

During the Civil War, many Home Guard companies quickly came together during the chaos and uncertainty of the initial weeks and months of the war, as men were anxious to join the fight. These smaller groups were often the first military units to form, sometimes centered around prewar militia groups, or geographic circumstances, and were perhaps easier and quicker to join without the usual military paperwork.

In Kentucky during the summer of 1861, weeks after the war started, the state created "county-based companies of Union men" that it called Home Guards.  However, the organization of these units was "never uniform throughout the state" and was frequently rather "informal."[1]

In Campbell County, several such units popped up, usually based around the town or community where the members lived instead of just the county. These included groups in Brooklyn and Jamestown as well as in the Mt. Vernon and Mt. Pleasant areas of what is now Ft. Thomas. Gus Artsman’s (or Artzman’s) company of the Kentucky Police Guard and the 42nd Kentucky Enrolled Militia regiment also organized largely in Campbell County, the latter not until the late summer of 1862.

Around the state, as summer of 1861 transformed into fall, “many Home Guard units saw action in defense of their communities, although the combat value of most Home Guard companies was slight.” These were not well-trained, disciplined troops. These were groups of men, usually without military experience, coming together for a common cause.

When these local groups entered combat, they often experienced a similar fate as similar companies. “Confederate units, especially those led by John Hunt Morgan, who often encountered Home Guardsmen, seldom had much trouble brushing aside even the most persistent of men.”[2]

Some of these units, or at least some of their men, did, however, fight bravely when they had the chance to “see the elephant.” It did not happen in their own community, but the men of one such unit that formed in Newport, Kentucky, soon witnessed the true nature of combat.

——

William Sanders was born on January 16, 1829, in England, three decades and a wide ocean away from the war that would eventually decide his fate. He later made his way across the cold and often dangerous Atlantic Ocean to the United States, settling in Campbell County, Kentucky by the late 1850s, when he married Elizabeth Band, another immigrant from England, on October 3, 1857, in Newport.

In 1860, he lived in Newport with his wife, two children, and 16-year-old Thomas Sanders, who may have been his nephew, as the census reports he was also an English native. William worked as a clerk. 

After the Civil War started, William joined Artsman’s company of the Kentucky Police Guard, a short-term home guard unit based in Newport, enlisting as a sergeant on September 19, 1861, but he mustered out just two weeks later on October 4. This company included 70 men, likely all or mostly from Campbell County, including a Thomas Sanders, quite possibly William’s family and housemate. Thomas would have been 18 by this time. 

 

After leaving that unit, William enlisted as a second lieutenant in another local group of citizen-soldiers, this time John Arthur’s company of Newport Home Guards. In mid-1862, danger approached a region not terribly far from Campbell County, so the men of this unit travelled south to Cynthiana in Harrison County to face an approaching enemy force.

Confederate General Morgan, of course, was soon to become the scourge of many Union supporters in Kentucky, Indiana, and Ohio, and a hero to southern sympathizers. He had just recently “launched his first major raid into Kentucky,” hoping to interrupt Union communication lines and to recruit more men for his cause.

On July 17, he had arrived in Cynthiana, “strategically located on the Kentucky Central Railroad and the Licking River.” His troops, about 800 in number, soon met the enemy, some of whom had “positioned themselves across the river in houses and had posted artillery to contest the bridge crossing.     

The Confederates attacked and soon forced their opponents to surrender. They “captured more than 300 horses, destroyed Cynthiana’s railroad depot and nearby railroad track, and wrecked a Union camp.”[3]     

 The beaten Union forces included the Newport Home Guards, which had been “badly cut up” during the battle.[4] This unit had suffered losses reported as two men killed, six wounded, and two missing.[5]

 William was one of those casualties, suffering an undocumented wound which was not immediately fatal. He was able to leave the battlefield having “distinguished himself by his bravery” on that ground.

His wounds were apparently serious, as he eventually was admitted to St. John’s Hospital in Cincinnati, where he died of his battlefield injuries on November 18, four months after the engagement. He was buried in Evergreen Cemetery in Southgate, Kentucky, where his colleagues attended the funeral of this immigrant who had given his all in defending his adopted homeland.[6]

His widowed Elizabeth lived until 1920, but in 1871 remarried, now to John Henry Stegeman, another Civil War veteran, having served as a 1st Lieutenant in the 5th Ohio Light Artillery.

Those few lines in the newspaper and a headstone were the closest to fame or glory William Sanders ever received but his story is another one worthy of recognition and a place in the memory of this bloody war.

[1]Hughes, Nicky. Home Guards. Taken from The Kentucky Encyclopedia. Kleber, John E. (Editor-in-chief); Clark, Thomas D.; Harrison, Lowell M.; Klotter, James C.; (Associate Editors) University Press of Kentucky. 1992. p. 438 

[2]Ibid

[3]https://explorekyhistory.ky.gov/items/show/99

[4]Cincinnati Daily Enquirer, July 19, 1862

[5]Cincinnati Commercial Tribune, July 21, 1862

[6]Cincinnati Daily Enquirer, November 19, 1862

 

The first photo is from https://www.hmdb.org/PhotoFullSize.asp?PhotoID=711423

The next one is courtesy of https://explorekyhistory.ky.gov/files/show/111

The headstone photograph came from findagrave memorial id 88684715

Isaac G. Thacker, 40th Ky Infantry: The Life of a Boy Soldier

It has been a while since I last posted, so here finally is another story, this time about a very young man who served his country more than once.

Boys fighting in the Civil War is just one of the thousands of topics covering the Civil War, and it was, of course, also an issue in Campbell County, Kentucky. One instance of this was the story of Isaac George Thacker.

Isaac was born on May 2, 1849, in Olive Hill, Carter County, Kentucky, the son of Daniel and America Thacker. 

On September 17, 1863, as the Civil War was in its third year, Isaac enrolled as a private in company E of the 40^th Kentucky Infantry, though he was soon listed as a musician.

The 40^th Kentucky Infantry had been organized at both Grayson and Falmouth, Kentucky in mid-1863. It then remained in Kentucky, including involvement in operations against the forces of Confederate General John H. Morgan in 1864. These contests included fights at both Mount Sterling and the Second Battle of Cynthiana.

These men then spent the rest of their time in the service in eastern Kentucky and near Saltville, Virginia the regiment mustered out in December of 1864.

Isaac was only 14 years old when he enlisted, well under the military’s minimum age of 18 for soldiers. Many youngsters were able to avoid this standard and join the army anyway, especially as musicians or drummer boys, but some, including Campbell County residents Perry Wright and Adam Freppon, ran into trouble when their families found out what their sons were doing. Both of those boys managed to overcome their parents’ disapproval and joined the military, but Isaac did not have that problem, as his mother (under the name America McClannahan from a new marriage) permitted his enlistment by signing (making her mark) on the “consent in case of minor” section of the Declaration of Recruit document that Isaac had signed in a similar fashion. This consent allowed him to leave home at such a young age, soon to face unknown situations and scenarios that scared or scarred many an older man. He apparently found out that military life suited him, despite some hardships, beginning a long life including years in various military units.

When Isaac joined the Union Army, he appeared as the boy he was, standing 5 feet, 3 inches tall, and featuring dark eyes, dark hair, and a dark complexion. His occupation was farmer, no doubt from his work on the family land.

He enlisted for a one-year term, signing up in Olive Hill.  

In February of 1864, he served on “extra duty” on the provost guard in Paris, Kentucky. The provost guard was a unit similar to modern military police, and Isaac may have helped guard prisoners. Perhaps officials tried to find him tasks less dangerous tasks than active field duty, but, if so, it did not work. Records list him as absent without leave in June of that same year, but other paperwork clarifies that he had been captured by Confederate General John H. Morgan’s men in May or June, at either Mt. Sterling or Cynthiana as Morgan’s latest group of  rebels invaded Kentucky.

After Morgan paroled his captives (instead of trying to guard and feed them during his raid), Isaac spent time in a hospital in Lexington in July and August.

He mustered out of the army on December 30, 1864, in Catlettsburg, Kentucky.

After the war, the 21-year-old Isaac lived in Cold Spring, in 1870, working as a farmer and sharing his home with members of the Gard family, per the census recorded on August 1. A few weeks later, on  September 14, he married one of his housemates,  Alice Gard, in Newport. They later had one son, Albia, born in nearby Dayton (KY) in 1881, the same town where Isaac had been working as a carpenter. 

He moved around often in the post-war years, but in 1890 was still in Dayton.

At some point in the 1880s or 1890s, Isaac and Alice divorced, as that was her marital status in the 1900 census, though specific information on when or why they separated has not revealed itself.

Isaac married again, this time to Millie Sheffield on July 14, 1893, in West Virginia and in 1900, he could read and write and worked as a baker in Franklin County, Ohio. Ten years later he worked as a farmer in Cabel County, West Virginia, where he and Millie remained as the 1920s began.

The Civil War apparently had not quenched his thirst for military experiences, so in the years after that conflict,  enlisted in the army three more times.

On June 12, 1866, he joined company H of the 1^st Infantry in Cincinnati. At this time, he was a farmer with gray eyes, dark hair and a ruddy complexion, and had grown to  be 5 feet 7 inches tall. He was discharged from this service on June 1, 1869, in Michigan as his term of service reached its end. He was a sergeant at that time.

In 1883, he enlisted in company E of the 10^th Infantry.  He joined in Fort Wayne, Michigan, still a farmer with similar physical traits. He was discharged from this service on August 15, 1888, at Fort Lyons, Colorado, again as his term had expired. He was a Protestant, and his character was “excellent.”

Undated photo from a family tree on ancestry.com

His final enlistment in the regular army occurred at Vancouver Barracks, Washington on April 16, 1889. He joined the 14^th Infantry and was discharged on October 21, 1890, by a special order at the same location. Records showed him with a similar physical description and again described him as a Protestant with excellent character.

Soldier Isaac Thacker died on April 27, 1929, at age 79, in Holmes County, Ohio, and was buried there in Killbuck Cemetery.               

  From findagrave memorial id 16147070

Immigrant, Bugler, Prisoner, Deserter: Frank Brinkman, 4th Ky. Cavalry (USA)

        As I have studied Campbell County men who served in the Civil War, I have learned quite a bit, including about battles that I had never seen much about previously. One such contest was the First Battle of Murfreesboro, a July 13, 1862, birthday victory for then-Colonel Nathan Bedford Forrest and his Confederate troops, described in that link as “the first significant operation behind Federal lines in the western theater,” a success that “catapulted Forrest to great renown and a promotion to brigadier general,” while interrupting Union operations against Chattanooga and communication in middle Tennessee.

The Confederate triumph at this lightly guarded city, “a strategic supply depot on the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad,” for the Federals, may have also enabled General Braxton Bragg to take the time to concentrate his band of Rebels for a campaign into Kentucky which ended at the Battle of Perryville three months later.

I found out about this contest while exploring the life of Frank Brinkman, a bugler in the Union army and a postwar resident of Campbell County. 

Frank was born on November 21, 1840, in Bremen, Germany and immigrated to the United States in 1859. He became one of numerous German natives who fought for the Federal government, including several I have uncovered in my own research. 

When the Civil War began two years after his arrival, he enlisted in company A of the 4th Kentucky Cavalry on September 25, 1861, in Louisville, mustering into the regiment as a bugler in December. He stood 5 feet 8 inches tall, and had a fair complexion, light hair, and blue eyes.   

The 4th Kentucky Cavalry included “the second largest contingent of Germans in a Kentucky regiment.  Perhaps this shared heritage was the reason he joined this particular unit.¹

 Frank’s regiment remained in the western theater of the war after its organization. It spent much of its time in Kentucky, Tennessee, and Georgia, seeing action in various battles and campaigns including the Tullahoma Campaign in mid-1863, the Battle of Chickamauga in September of that year, and the Atlanta Campaign throughout the spring and summer of 1864.

During the inglorious action at Murfreesboro, Frank became one of the about 800 to 1,200 Union soldiers captured by Forrest’s men. The victors quickly paroled their captured enemies, obligating them not to fight again until an official exchange between the two armies went into effect. Frank spent time at Camp Chase in Ohio awaiting exchange, but when he was exchanged on January 20, 1863, he chose to desert the army instead of returning to his unit.²

Good fortune was on his side, though, as he was able to remain away from the army for a few months until Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation of amnesty in early 1863, allowing soldiers who were absent without leave to return to their unit with no punishment except the loss of pay for their time away. Frank took advantage of this opportunity and returned to the regiment on April 15.

The rest of his military days were less eventful. In early 1864, he re-enlisted in the unit as a Veteran Volunteer and received promotion to Chief Bugler of the entire regiment around the same time.

He served out his remaining term and mustered out of the army on August 21, 1865, in Macon, Georgia. 

   Kentucky Post June 23, 1916

In his postwar years, he lived in Newport by 1870, working as a steamboat cook. He married Elizabeth Moeller in 1876, and the couple had at least three children before she passed away in 1901. He also worked as a bridge contractor in these decades.

Frank died of diabetes on June 21, 1916, at home on Retreat Street in Southgate. His obituary described him as an “Ohio River sailor and commander, and for many years collector on the Central Bridge” who had “plied the Ohio River for more than a half century,” perhaps including some of the hyperbole that obituaries of the time often employed. It mentioned his service in the war, claiming he had lived through “four years and 31 days of actual war experience,” probably another slight exaggeration, and had been an “active member” of the William Nelson Post of the Grand Army of the Republic ever since that post’s formation. ^3,4

The G.A.R. post conducted his funeral at his home, and the funeral procession carried his body to its final resting place in the Union soldiers’ section at Evergreen Cemetery, just a few hundred yards from his home.

 

From findagrave memorial # 22198050 

¹Reinhart, Joseph R. A History of the 6th Kentucky Volunteer Infantry, U.S. The Boys who Feared no Noise. Beargrass Press 2000. Accessed via https://www.usgenwebsites.org/KYCampbell/germanscivilwar.htm, July 9, 2023.  
²https://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entries/battle-of-murfreesboro/, Accessed August 1, 2024
³Kentucky Post, June 21, 1916
⁴Kentucky Post, June 23, 1916

 

                                 

 

             

 

 

Tenant Association: One Family’s Civil War Experience

One surprise of my current research into local Civil War soldiers has been the dozens of examples of families having multiple members in the war. Most of these, of course, are of the families’ sons enlisting, but I have also found instances of fathers and sons fighting in the war. Among these were the Tenants, father Raleigh and son John Solomon.*

Raleigh Tenant was born in Monongalia County, Virginia (now West Virginia) sometime around 1817 to 1819.

 

By the early 1840s, he had relocated to Campbell County, Kentucky, where he married Rebecca Miller in Alexandria on October 19, 1843.

 

In 1850, the family, including John and his sister, lived in Covington, in neighboring Kenton County, where Raleigh labored as a blacksmith, his same career ten years later when the Tenants were back in southern Campbell County, living in the  Tebbatts Crossroads area. Five children were in the household, including John Solomon, who had attended school in the last year.

 

On April 12, 1861, Confederate troops fired on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, igniting the Civil War. John Solomon was only 14 or 15 years old, but Raleigh was an adult, and almost eight months later decided to fight for his country.

 

On December 7, 1861, he joined company G of the 23rd Kentucky Infantry as a private, signing up at the Newport Barracks for a three-year term. Listed as 43 years old, he was 5 feet 6¾ inches tall and had a light complexion. His eyes were blue, his hair dark brown, and he worked as a blacksmith.

 

The 23rd Kentucky had recruited heavily in Newport and throughout the Campbell County region and signed up dozens of men from the area. It saw action at battles and campaigns like Stones River, Tullahoma, Chickamauga, Chattanooga, Atlanta, and more throughout the war’s western theater.

 

By July of 1862, Raleigh must have found military life unbearable, as he left the unit at Columbia, Kentucky, without permission, though by December he was in Munfordville, in the process of returning to the regiment (perhaps obtaining new equipment and seeking transportation to the unit as it marched in a campaign that ended at the Battle of Stones River). His paperwork does not record the punishment he received for his time away, but it surely included at least the loss of pay.

 

Raleigh did make his return to the regiment, which late in 1863 was among the U.S. forces in action in a bloody battle in Chickamauga, Georgia, the largest fight in the war's western theater. 

After the Confederates won that battle in mid-September, U.S. forces retreated to Chattanooga. During this time, the Federals reorganized the army, after which the 23rd ended up in William B. Hazen’s 2nd Brigade in Thomas Wood’s 3rd Division of Gordon Granger’s 4th Corps, all in the Army of the Cumberland commanded by George Thomas. 

From the American Battlefield Trust

As this happened, the Confederates laid siege to the city and their enemy within it. General U.S. Grant, now in charge of western U.S. forces, arrived in the region, and approved of General William “Baldy” Smith’s plan to create a route, eventually termed the “cracker line,” to supply the men inside the city. Some members of the 23rd played a role in the opening of that supply line during the fight at Brown’s Ferry, Tennessee on October 27.

 

Almost a month later, the Federals earned another victory at Lookout Mountain on November 24, before the next day, when “more than 50,000 Union soldiers stormed” up “the seemingly impregnable Confederate position on Missionary Ridge” during a “daring - and unauthorized - attack…against Bragg’s main position," which went a long way to improving the army’s "spirit and sense of pride."

The Federals had just defeated “one of the Confederacy’s two major armies,” and gained full possession of “the “Gateway to the Lower South.”

                                                                

          From the Library of Congress

This crucial result may have been “the death knell of the Confederacy," as reportedly described by one Rebel officer. Chattanooga later served as the key staging area and for William Sherman’s 1864 campaign for Atlanta, in which the 23rd Kentucky also fought.

Raleigh, however received did not participate in that adventure as he had received a mortal gunshot wound in his head at Missionary Ridge on the 25th, just one of 5,824 Union casualties of that engagement.

He owned two flannel shirts and one blanket, all of which had been sent back to his grieving widow in Campbell County. He was buried in what became Chattanooga National Cemetery.

Courtesy findagrave memorial 2996115

His son John Solomon Tenant was born in Campbell County in November of 1846.

 

He joined a different regiment that had also recruited heavily locally, the 53rd Kentucky Mounted Infantry. He signed up for company F of that unit on October 20, 1864, in Newport, and mustered in four days later for a one-year term. He was a bit shorter than his father, at 5 feet 4 inches tall, had gray eyes, and light-colored hair. His complexion was described as ruddy. Farming was his job.

 

His father’s death the previous year obviously did not prevent him from entering the war and perhaps even motivated him to fight, either to honor his father’s memory or to avenge his death. His mother’s feelings on his decision to enlist would be interesting to know. Did she approve or disapprove of it? How worried was she about her son?

 

The 53rd had formed in the autumn of 1864, too late to be part of most of the war’s most famous battles and campaigns, but did perform guard duty throughout Kentucky, combated Confederate guerrillas, and took part in George Stoneman’s December 1864 raid into southwestern Virginia to attack a Confederate salt depot at Saltville. As a “mounted infantry” regiment, it grnerslly traveled on horseback like cavalry, but fought dismounted like infantry. 

In this campaign, the 53rd served under Brigadier General Stephen G. Burbridge, the most notorious and controversial figure in Civil War Kentucky due to his aggressive threats and actions against Confederate irregular fighters and citizens as commander of the District of Kentucky from June of 1864 until February of 1865. His time in that position earned the description "Reign of Terror," and won him the nickname of "the Butcher." (A 2021 book concerning his legacy is entitled The Most Hated Man in Kentucky. I have an e-copy of it that I need to read one of these days.)

Even 50 years after the war, his name aroused ill feelings, such as when he was blamed for the executions of  Jefferson McGraw and William Francis Corbin, who had been arrested for recruiting for the Confederacy in northern Pendleton County, near the Campbell County border, just a few miles from where the Tenants lived in 1860. Ambrose Burnside was in command of the Department of Ohio, with his office located in Cincinnati, just north of where these men were captured (about an hour in modern times) and his General Order #38 led to their arrest and punishment, yet, in 1914, when the Basil Duke Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy erected a monument to McGraw's memory in Flagg Spring Church Cemetery in southern Campbell County, near where the arrests had occurred, that group listed Burbridge's name instead of Burnside's. Whether this was a mistake of memory, or an intentional slight of the hated Butcher is unclear. On one hand, this was half-a-century after the war, so memories certainly falter over such a long timeframe, but the UDC existed at lest partially to help remember the war, though perhaps not objectively, so they should have been familiar with the basic facts of the incident, especially in preparing a monument. These women may have felt that using Burbridge’s name as some kind of boogeyman to be feared or avoided would further their perspectives on the war by reminding people of a Union commander who had so harassed their ancestors and others throughout the state. This organization generally  adopted the “Lost Cause” interpretation of the war. Per the previous link, this way of remembering the war “sought to counter northern perspectives by reframing the war in a way that restored white southern honor.” Reminding people of Burbridge’s controversial actions supported this narrative by showing the supposed lack of honor of a prominent Confederate enemy who had supported emancipation of slaves and the use of African American men as soldiers. Was this monument just a toy in a game of memory?

The Kentucky Post of August 4 and October 8 of that year reported on the decision to create the small monument and covered the ceremony but made no mention of the blatant error now literally engraved in stone.

Civil War historian Darryl Smith explored and discussed this story in 2022, offering his perspective about how and why such an obvious mistake occurred.

      Author's photo. Another view is here.

(In a side note, prolific Civil War author Erik Wittenberg wrote a blog entry which discussed the potential consequences of these two executions, as the both sides threatened further retaliation, during which Rooney Lee, son of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, became a potential victim of this deadly game, before calmer minds miraculously prevailed. Yes, even the story of two obscure Confederate operatives arrested in a rural area (near where I grew up) far from the major military and political fronts of the war eventually reached such high levels.)

The 53rd Kentucky did suffer casualties during the campaign to Saltville and John Solomon may have been among them. No record mentions a specific illness or injury he suffered, but he was “sent back with prisoners” after a December 12 Union victory at the Battle of Kingsport, TN., near the border of Tennessee and Virginia. 

These Rebel captives had formerly served under the late Confederate General John H. Morgan, a man whose name was especially well-known in the Kentucky and Tennessee region during the war, feared by many Unionists, but beloved by Confederates. He had been killed in September, so his trusted brother-in-law Duke Basil took command of the troops, but Duke was hospitalized at this time, so Morgan’s brother Dick led the remaining raiders in this defeat and was among those the bluecoats captured.

As for John Solomon, for some reason, likely an unrecorded illness or injury, a doctor or other official took advantage of the transfer of prisoners back to Kentucky to send him with them instead of keeping him with the army where he would have consumed the medicines, food, and other resources the fighting men needed, especially in enemy territory. (The rest of the raid went well for the Federals who ended up damaging the Confederate salt works and knocking them out of action for months.)                                                           

Once back in the Bluegrass State, he spent the first two months of 1865 in the Main Street U.S.A. General Hospital in Covington, the city where his family had resided in 1850. This hospital was the “largest and longest-operating military hospital” in its city, having opened just before the bloody Battle of Shiloh. It held 300 beds and remained in operation until June 1865.¹ 

 Main St. General Hospital, courtesy fortwright.com

Whether his mother knew of his condition is uncertain, but, once again, her thoughts would be compelling to know since she had already lost her husband in the war, but her Don lived and returned to his regiment.

As he was discharged from the army on September 15, 1865, in Louisville, John Solomon owed the government 95 cents for a cartridge box, belt, belt plate, and a gun sling that he had lost and an additional $5.60 for clothing he had received while in service.

 He returned to civilian life, and fifteen years after the war worked as a farmer, supporting his family that included his wife Angelique, and their son. They had moved west and were now residing in Effingham County, Illinois, where John Solomon remained for the rest of his years, including 1900, when the family now boasted three children. That decade’s census showed that the couple had been married for 25 years, though their oldest child was born in 1873, so they may have wed about that time.

 

The Tenants and two adult children shared a house in the same area in 1910.

 

John Solomon died on April 22, 1911, and was buried in Effingham County’s Loy Chapel Cemetery.

Courtesy findagrave memorial 24159929

Rebecca Tenant, John Solomon’s mother, and the grieving widow of Raleigh, did apply for and receive a widow’s pension (on paperwork which frequently referred to her late spouse as “Rolla.”)

 In applying for that money to help her continue with life (the pension started at $8.00 monthly and was still at that level at least until at least 1883, though it eventually increased to $12.00), she naturally needed to have various forms completed, and even had to sign the Oath of Allegiance to the U.S. Government, a form usually used for captured Confederate soldiers or civilians suspected of supporting the Confederacy.

It began with a short paragraph explaining who needed to take this pledge, including one line applicable to Rebecca: “This oath is required from pensioners once, (on the first payment to new ones,) who are native-born, or have been naturalized.”

The actual oath followed on this typed form, but the word “Swear” was handwritten on a blank line instead of being typed like the rest. What else the document creators thought could fill that space with a different meaning is uncertain. 

I, Rebecca Tennant, a pensioner of the United States, do solemnly swear that I will support, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, whether domestic or foreign, and that I will bear true faith, allegiance and loyalty to the same, and ordinance, resolution, or law of any State Convention or Legislature to the contrary notwithstanding; and, further, that I do this with a full determination, pledge, and purpose, without any mental reservation or evasion whatsoever; and, further, that I will well and faithfully perform all the duties which may be required of me by law. So help me God.

She signed this by making her mark on June 3, 1867.

 She continued to live in the Grant’s Lick area. In 1870, she was a housekeeper with three children at home, but not John Solomon, and a decade later was a farmer and her only housemate was a domestic servant named Minerva Hill. Why her son had moved to Illinois instead of staying with his widowed mother in 1870 is not recorded. Did he just want to get on with his life as an adult and raise his own family, or had mother and son fallen out over something, perhaps his enlistment? Another possibility is that he did return to stay with her during some of the years between the end of the war and the 1870 census, then moved on amicably. No matter what happened, both parties apparently fared well in the postwar decades.

In 1890 she was listed as Raleigh’s (or Rally’s) widow on the Veteran’s Schedule, still in Grant’s Lick, and an 1892 tax list on the Campbell County Genweb local genealogy site reported that she owned 54 acres of land, worth $1,000 in Grant’s Lick.

Pension documents show that her name was removed from the pension list as of February 1900 because she had recently died, perhaps late in 1899, though no specific date was listed. Her burial place is unknown and may not even have a marker.

Hundreds of thousands of men were killed during the war, and many more fell ill but somehow survived. Virtually all of these warriors, on both sides, had families and friends who grieved for their loss or prayed for their recovery. The Tenant family of Campbell County was just one example of what families throughout the land experienced. 

*Differing versions of the names of the father, son, and mother exist in various records. For the sake of consistency, I am using "Tenant” (instead of Tennant) for their last name, Raleigh (in place of several other phonetic variations) for the father, and “John Solomon” for the son. “Rebecca” is the standard spelling of the wife/mother’s name, so I use it.

¹Tenkotte, Paul A. (editor) and Claypool, James C. (Editor). The Encyclopedia of Northern Kentucky. University Press of Kentucky. 2009 p. 195.